John Birch Society

The John Birch Society (JBS) is a conservative advocacy group that supports anti-communism and limited government. It was founded on 9 December 1958 by the American businessman Robert W. Welch Jr., and it held extreme right-wing views, claiming that the Civil Rights movement had not been infiltrated by communists, but had instead been founded and led by communists; the JBS also opposed the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The JBS was so radical that even conservative National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. urged the Republican Party to purge itself of Welch's influences and to ignore his radical fringe organization. It also seeks to dismantle the Federal Reserve System, to block all amendments to the US Constitution, and to press for a US withdrawal from the United Nations.